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Kind of funny to look back at how many of us reacted like chicken little's after day one (and days two and three) of the draft..... where's the pass rush? whilee BB was saying that the draft is just one part of the offseason team building process

Post here to confess your sins to BB.

I'll start:

"i confess i was excited about the offensive weaponry added but thought BB was being arrogant in his ability to coach up a young defense. i read and agreed with many posters rants against the NEP draft."

I'm not ready to confess a darn thing yet. We've seen one pre-season game. One game...and it was in the pre-season. I hate to be a downer, I was just excited as everyone else by the blow out. It proves we aren't in too bad of a situation with our depth but, let's temper our excitement a bit until we get a larger sample of games to pour over.

Light is on the downhill side of his career and nobody knew if the Pats could resign him....BB was looking ahead and grabbed what he considered the best OT in the draft.....So far , with Light's re-signing and mentoring of Solder, it looks like a good pick......

At the time of the draft i was worried...right now after the FA moves we have made i'm liking the draft alot more.

Ridley looks like he's gonna be a force this year. Solder is likely the real deal. Heck even Mallett looked better than i expected even if it was against scrubs. If Dowling and Vereen turn out to be players then the last 2 drafts have been absolutely unbelievable.

It was ONE pre season game, its a little Early to confesses to anything. Plus no one knew that BB would change to more of a 4-3 look. Therefore worrying about not taking a OLB or a DE was legit back in April. The team has no problem using high draft round picks on DB's almost every year, why not take a chance on an OLB or DE.

During the draft I absolutely HATED the Solder pick. It didn't totally shock or annoy me that we took an OT early. But I really didn't like Solder's play at Colorado.

And while it's far too early to know anything concrete about how Solder will ultimately work out. I'm pleasantly surprised how good he looked already. Thursday's game wasn't perfect by any stretch. But after a week or so in camp he was a million times better than some of the 1st round OL from the past couple years (i.e. the most of the Niners OL, Okung, etc.)

I'm not ready to confess a darn thing yet. We've seen one pre-season game. One game...and it was in the pre-season. I hate to be a downer, I was just excited as everyone else by the blow out. It proves we aren't in too bad of a situation with our depth but, let's temper our excitement a bit until we get a larger sample of games to pour over.

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I agree its early, but I must admit I like what I have seen from the two practices I attended and the pre-season game. It's amazing that the backups with rookies and UDFA played so well after just two weeks of practice and no OTA's or rookie camp.

The pre-season blowout proved that our backups are better thab JAX starters and backups. There were 16 scouts at the game and I am sure teams are calling about players they think the Pats are not going to able to keep.

Since I wrote the opus of "the sky is falling" posts in April, I probably should have been the first responder . I didn't even wait until the draft was over. I went nuts (literally) after the Mallet pick, and never heard the rest of the draft. So clearly I have some mea cuplas and hail mary's to make before the altar of Bill.

But in all our defenses there are 2 mitigating factors in our failure to see the value in the draft.

1. I think everyone's expectations are formed from the weeks running up to the draft. We are constantly going over the many mock drafts. We listen to all the predictions. We add all of that to our own perceptions of what we need and how we see the "ideal" draft projecting. Then when it goes COMPLETELY opposite to our expectations, it can be pretty frustrating.

So when everyone was expecting a draft heavily weighted in DEs and OLBs, two positions of perceived need, and when we pick NONE of these positions, AND add a relatively high pick QB, a position of NO need....questions (to understate it) will be raised

2. As usual we clearly didn't have the big picture. I'm sure in the run up to the draft BB saw the opportunity to add players from the deep FA DL mix, that HE thought would be better for us in the short term than training rookies, especially when we already had so many young DL men. After the mid first round I doubt he felt that there were any OLB candidate better than what he had already or could pick up in FA. I expect he had made the Haynesworth decision and decided on the defensive changes that we have seen manifest over the first weeks of camp.

I will always wonder if he would have made the Solder pick if he had known that Light would resign. Maybe he did and did it anyway. BTW Solder did NOTHING last thursday to may anyone think that he wasn't worth the pick. He did VERY well for a kid who had been in camp only a week and had like 3 padded practices.

I will always wonder if he would have made the Solder pick if he had known that Light would resign. Maybe he did and did it anyway. BTW Solder did NOTHING last thursday to may anyone think that he wasn't worth the pick. He did VERY well for a kid who had been in camp only a week and had like 3 padded practices.

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Interestingly, my biggest mea culpa is that I feared the Solder pick would induce Light NOT to resign, causing a messy transition period.

I'm not ready to confess a darn thing yet. We've seen one pre-season game. One game...and it was in the pre-season.

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One question: I understand that even thogh they exceeded expecations, it doesn't mean anything because it was only one game and a preseason one at that...BUT...if they had lost 47-12, if they were unable to find the endzone, if the Jags pass rush tore them up and the Pats looked as bad as the Jags did, would you still be saying, "It's only one game and pre-season one at that. The fact that they cokuld score, couldn't block, couldn't pass rush means nothing at all. No worries until the real games start."

Or would you be upset about how they played? Gary Tanguay and Michael Fleger play this game all the time. If they do good, it's only a preseason game, if they look bad, it's a sign that BB screwed up.